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LITTWIN: Rudy looks for a miracle in Florida

By Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 29, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

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The smallish crowd at the smallish commuter jet terminal watches Rudy Giuliani and company climb down from the outsized plane that has been crisscrossing the state in Rudy's last-ditch, save-the-campaign (from complete embarrassment) tour.

The middle-aged woman beside me starts yelling, "That's Jon Voight. Mom, that's Jon Voight."

Her mother says, "Who's that?"

"Mom, you know, the actor."

The actor who's campaigning for Giuliani bounces in, does a small step to the music blaring from the speakers, shakes every hand that wants to be shaken, poses for photos and even offers to take a photo himself, stops to do a brief TV interview (a European station - maybe German, maybe Scandinavian - asks what Giuliani would have done about Midnight Cowboy, and Voight just laughs), and promises to stay as long as people want him to stay.

You'd almost think it was a party, if a smallish, subdued party. Before Voight arrives, the crowd begins to chant "Rudy, Rudy," but the chant dies out long before Rudy arrives. An omen, anyone?

OK, no one knows if it's a party or a wake. Voight speaks first and says, as a New Yorker, that Giuliani saved the city. He said the city needed a miracle and - he looks to the sky- "along came Rudy Giuliani."

Rudy needs a miracle this time. If he loses here, it might be the end of his campaign. He has been in the state for 57 days chasing Florida voters- while other candidates were in other states chasing, well, all those delegates. To this point, Giuliani has exactly no delegates.

And according to the dreaded polls - which Giuliani had led here for months - Rudy has slipped to third in Florida. The longer he sticks around, the lower he goes. That would seem to be a real omen.

But, hey, why trust the polls? To see how Rudy is doing, all you have to do is watch the front-runners tear into each other - go to YouTube and watch John McCain's Tale of Two Mitts Masterpiece Theatre - and act as if Giuliani doesn't even exist.

As Giuliani rides the "Florida Is Rudy Country" campaign bus, I'm thinking at least we can answer the existential question. But even as he walks by, your eyes shift to his wife, Judith, who's campaigning with him. If you're wondering where it all started to go wrong for Giuliani, it might have been when the story broke about the New York cops providing security - on the city dime, when Giuliani was mayor - for his wife and his mistress simultaneously.

"You're gonna win," a fan shouts from the crowd as Rudy takes the stage.

"We are gonna win," he yells back. He says whoever wins Florida will win the Republican nomination. And he may be right.

But earlier in the day, when asked what he would do after today's vote, he said, "We'll decide Wednesday."

About a third of the crowd here is from New York. Martin and Linda Facterman moved from New York in the early '90s.

"We love Rudy," Linda says.

"Anyone who can beat Hillary," her husband says. "Rudy cleaned up New York. When I used to walk around the city, you needed to walk with a bunch of guys. Now it's a different place."

Martin doesn't buy the polls, but Linda is worried and is saying she thinks Romney wouldn't be so bad.

"He's been here a long time," Linda says of Giuliani. "By this time, he should at least have a good tan."

The big question is what happened to the Rudy everyone knows and who some even love. If he loses here, some will inevitably, and loudly, blame him for leaving Iowa and New Hampshire early - when he saw he couldn't win in either place. But when Romney, McCain and Huckabee divided the early states, it looked as if betting it all on Florida might possibly even work.

But did the real Rudy ever show? Or did the real Rudy worry that the real New York Rudy couldn't show and also win? There's an ugly race here - so nasty a fight you'd think Bill Clinton must be in town. It's just the kind of race you figure Giuliani would love. They're playing Eye of the Tiger as his theme music, and you realize you've never seen Rudy's teeth in this campaign.

For some reason, Giuliani - described recently in a New York Times story as the mayor who "made the vengeful roundhouse an instrument of government" - has pulled all his punches.

One McCain aide was telling me the other day that the one thing he was sure of in this campaign was that Giuliani would implode spectacularly. But if the polls are right, we're moving along, and there's been absolutely no spectacle to see here, folks.

Meanwhile, McCain and Romney spent the last few days taking ever-tougher shots at the other. "Liberal" was among the nicer things they've called each other.

On the last day, Romney reminded voters that John Kerry once considered McCain as a potential running mate.

McCain reminded voters of Romney's flip-flopping, saying the only "consistent" thing about Romney is his "inconsistency."

And, for his part, Giuliani gives a nine-minute speech here, saying his rivals should be more civil, while never saying a bad word about anyone, not even Hillary.

For his fans, it must have been like watching Ali in his last fights. They just wanted him not to get hurt.

Giuliani did promise victory at every stop. He told USA Today that "rumors of my demise are premature."

Giuliani was paraphrasing Mark Twain, of course. He might have noted that Twain also once said, "Actions speak louder than words, but not nearly as often."

littwinm@RockyMountainNews.com

Comments

  • January 29, 2008

    8:10 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Spencer writes:

    Well Jon Voight's kid (Angelina Jolie) won't speak to him and Rude G's kids won't speak to him. I guess they do have a lot in common, they are both lousy dads.

  • January 29, 2008

    1:30 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Ted_in_Vegas writes:

    You can tell a lot about a man by looking at the relationship he has with his kids. Need we say more?

    I actually agree with Spencer for once. Rudy's gone by-by, and deservedly so.